York & North Yorkshire LEP

Shaping a new future for the York & North Yorkshire LEP with a strategic recruitment campaign

The Challenge

The business support service York & North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (Y&NY LEP) is geographically the largest, rural, LEP area in the UK and helps to shape future priorities, develop partnerships, and secure both public and private sector investment to deliver economic growth across the region.

The Y&NY LEP needed to recruit a new Chair for its main board as well as recruit new members to both its main and the Skills & Employability board. It was vital to attract applications from a diverse range of business leaders who represented the varying type and size of businesses across York and North Yorkshire to encourage economic development and develop investment opportunities.

Our Solution? A regional PR and social media campaign

Working closely with the LEP communications team, we delivered a sustained PR and social media campaign to raise awareness of the work the LEP in order to raise awareness and make business leaders aware of the opportunities available to make a real difference to the region.

We organised exclusive media interviews with David A Kerfoot MBE DL, current Chair of the LEP board and one of its members, Lady Jane Gibson, which were featured in both the Yorkshire Post and the York Press both as part of the board member recruitment and the later Chair recruitment campaigns.

Alongside securing coverage in regional newspapers, business magazines and online news outlets, we delivered a steady ‘drumbeat’ of content across the LEP social media channels including a series of short video interviews with David Kerfoot and other board members.

We engaged with local and regional networks and organisations inviting them to share the opportunities within their own networks via newsletters and social media to further increase awareness of the recruitment campaigns.

The Outcome

As a result of the heightened awareness of the recruitment campaigns, the LEP received a high number of applications for the board positions and successfully recruited Helen Simpson OBE as the new Chair, making her one of only four women in the UK to chair such boards, as well as four new board members with varied and diverse business backgrounds.